PR 5495 



THE PENNY PIPER 
OF SARANAC 



C5 BY 

'"^ ' STEPHEN CHALMERS 




Class ^S^^i^r 
Book t>< y . 

Copyright N"^ . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



The Penny Piper of Saranac 




\ 



From a Copier Print copyright hy 
Curtis dr" Cameron^ Inc., Boston 



THE SARANAC LAKE STEVENSON MEMORIAL 
Designed by Gutzon Borglum 



THE PENNY PIPER OF 
SARANAC 

A?i Episode in Stevensoji's Life 



BY 



STEPHEN CHALMERS 

WITH PREFACE BY 
LORD GUTHRIE 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

MDCCCCXVI 









6"^ 



COPYRIGHT, I912, BY THE OUTLOOK COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT, I916, BY STEPHEN CHALMERS 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



/ 



JUN 22 1916 
©CI,A4334C8 



b 



A deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck, 
Much Antony, of Hamlet most of all, 
And something of the Shoiter-Catechist. 
W. E. Henley 



PREFACE 

By Lord Guthrie 

"The Penny Piper of Saranac " 
is a most sane and real sketch of 
Robert Louis Stevenson. I call it 
a sketch of Stevenson, and not 
merely of his life at Saranac, for 
it shows much insight into his 
character, which was so complex 
that many people of broad minds 
but narrow sympathies thought it 
contradictory. 

His Puritanism was every bit as 
genuine as his Bohemianism. Such 
people could not, and their pres- 

l: vii n 



Preface 

ent-day representatives cannot, un- 
derstand this. But that was, and 
is, their fault ; not his. When peo- 
ple ask me what I thought of 
Stevenson, when, in the early sev- 
enties, we were much together in 
Edinburgh, at college and in the 
Speculative Society, and in 17 
Heriot Row, his father's house, I 
usually reply, "Which Stevenson? 
I knew at least four! '' 

"The Penny Piper of Saranac'' 
has attained what I thought the 
impossible, for there is not a "chest- 
nut" in it! Most Stevensoniana 
are full of them, always old, some- 
times stale, and more than occasion- 



Preface 

ally rotten, in the sense that they 
attribute to him sayings and actions 
which those who knew Stevenson 
as I knew him are able to say in- 
stinctively he could never, and 
would never, have said or done. 

Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor, 
in his Saranac memorial bas-relief, 
has got beneath the surface and 
behind the mask as Saint- Gaudens 
(fine as his bas-relief is, as a work 
of art) never did. I liked the first 
sight of Borglum' s work; and it 
grows on me. It has charm, and 
it has strength, and it has pathos. 
It is the invalid, but the invalid 
who can say, *'0 Pain! Where is 



Preface 

thy victory?" It is the fascinating 
personahty of a man of genius 
who, with all his gaiety of manner 
and desire to give pleasure, was 
yet, in a matter of essential prin- 
ciple, like flint — a block of iron 
painted to look like a lath! 

Swanston Cottage^ 

Colmton^ 
Midlothian^ Scotland 



AUTHOR'S NOTE 

The following brief sketch of 
Robert Louis Stevenson's life at 
Saranac Lake during the winter 
of 1887-88, was done in collabo- 
ration with the late Dr. Edward 
Livingston Trudeau, who carefully 
edited the original manuscript, pay- 
ing particular attention to the pre- 
cise wording, so far as his memory 
served him, of the various conver- 
sations between the distinguished 
patient and himself. 

The essay has had a lively ca- 
reer which, the author hopes, is 

c; xi ] 



Author s Note 

only beginning. First published 
in the Outlook ^ it was later repro- 
duced from a backwoods printshop 
as a souvenir of the unveiling at 
Saranac Lake of Gutzon Borg- 
lum's memorial tablet, erected by 
the Stevenson Society. Stevenson 
himself might have described that 
modest edition as "a penny plain" 
and the present one, in the dig- 
nity of real covers, as " twopence 
colored." To Munsey's the author 
acknowledges permission to repro- 
duce the verses which appear else- 
where. 

Since the essay's first publication 
many things connected with it have 



Author s Note 

transpired. The present writer's 
collaborator has passed to his de- 
served long rest. He died a few 
days after the lasting bronze had 
been uncovered <'at the cottage 
up the road " in honor of his 
quondam friend and patient ; and 
his last message from the sick- 
chamber was, " I am glad to have 
lived to see it done.'' 

It is not claiming too much to 
say that it was directly the influ- 
ence of " The Penny Piper of 
Saranac " that led to the creation 
of the Saranac Lake Stevenson 
Memorial. While the author was 
working on the manuscript, Rob- 

[^xiii ] 



Author s Note 

ert Hobart Davis, a well-known 
New York editor, visited the Adi- 
rondacks and heard, through the 
writer, some of the late Dr. Tru- 
deau's reminiscent anecdotes of 
Stevenson. Realizing for the first 
time, perhaps, that at Saranac 
Lake the famous Scot had really 
produced his best contributions 
to English literature, Mr. Davis 
started an agitation for the erec- 
tion of a suitable memorial. He 
enlisted the interest of his friend, 
Gutzon Borglum, the noted sculp- 
tor, who created his design as a 
personal tribute to the genius of 
R. L. S. The committee which 

C xiv 3 



Author s Note 

had the work in hand is now re- 
solved into the Stevenson Society 
of America, with an increasing 
membership and a rapidly grow- 
ing collection of Stevensoniana. 

Since the first publication of 
"The Penny Piper of Saranac" 
its author has heard but two anec- 
dotes which might have been in- 
cluded in the original essay. 

During Stevenson's stay at the 
Baker Cottage in the mountain 
hamlet, the Church of St. Luke 
the Beloved Physician, founded by 
Dr. Trudeau, had recently been 
built. Stevenson's mother, who 
was staying with him in Saranac 



Author s Note 



Lake, was much interested in the 
church's affairs. It is well known 
that the author had a strong aver- 
sion to hero- worshipers and lion- 
hunters — especially of the more 
inquisitive sex ; so when Mrs. 
Estella Martin, a member of an 
old Adirondack family, drove up 
to the cottage to confer with Mrs. 
Stevenson about a proposed church 
supper, R. L. S. took refuge in his 
"cubbyhole'' study and firmly 
shut the door. His mother pre- 
pared tea for the guest and sud- 
denly said, '' I would like you to 
meet my son, Louis." 

Mrs. Martin, who had heard 

L xvi ] 



Author s Note 



of the novelist's pet aversion, felt 
slightly nervous. Mrs. Stevenson 
went to the study door and there 
foUow^ed a whispered colloquy 
through a mere chink. Presently 
Stevenson came into the room, 
sat down by the stove, and, after 
a strained minute or two, asked 
Mrs. Martin if he might smoke. 
The moment his cigarette was 
alight the ice was broken and — 

" I had two hours of R. L. S.," 
says Mrs. Martin, " and he was the 
most interesting man I ever met." 

Later, it was planned to give 
the church benefit supper at the 
old Berkeley Inn in the village. 

[xvii ] 



Author s Note 



On the promise of Stevenson's 
mother that she would induce her 
son — somehow — to be present, 
the church ladies sold every avail- 
able seat, except one — that re- 
served for the lion of the occasion. 
Despite the elder Mrs. Steven- 
son's assurances, up to the last 
moment Robert Louis refused to 
be a party to the party. " Good 
Heavens ! " he exclaimed. '* They 
might ask me to make a speech!'' 
In the end the ladies had to 
kidnap him bodily. At first he was 
silent, even morose, when he took 
his seat at the supper table in the 
old inn ; but suddenly the humor 

C xviii ] 



Author s Noti 



of the situation struck him and 
his chameleon-like mood changed 
color. He threw himself into the 
affair with a spirit that was more 
Stevensonian than churchlike. He 
not only proceeded to enjoy him- 
self, but helped to make that 
church supper a memorable suc- 
cess ; and before he escorted his 
mother home, he insisted upon 
making a speech. 

All record of that speech is lost 
— more's the pity! Mrs. Martin 
does not remember just what he 
said, but — 

"It was — like him." 

No doubt it was ! 

S. C. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Saranac Lake Stevenson Me- 
morial DESIGNED BY GuTZON BoRG- 

LUM Frontispiece ^ 

The Room where Stevenson wrote 
"A Christmas Sermon," "The 



Lantern-Bearers," etc. . . . 


8 '^ 


The Stevenson Cottage at Saranac 




Lake 


8 ^ 



The Stevenson Cottage . . . . 48 ^ 
Andrew Baker discussing R. L. S. 
with a Literary Pilgrim 

The Veranda where Stevenson 

WALKED and DREAMED . . . . 48 ^ 

GuTzoN Borglum and his Tribute 

TO R. L. S 60 ''^ 

Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Baker . . 60 



The Penny Piper of Saranac 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

Out of the land of the ancient bards 

A wandering minstrel strayed ; 
Courage and hope were the song he sang, 

And faith was the string he played. 
*<I care not what the end," he cried, 

"So the road be fair and free } 
For the greater gift of life is his 

Who travels cheerily!" 

Earth was his house and heaven his roof j 

Sun, moon, and stars his light j 
Voices of wind and wood and wave 

His music day and night. 
Over his clouds the lark sang still ; 

And when the light was gone. 
Thrilling the dark of crouching doom. 

His nightingale sang on. 

So let us be, as the minstrel sang. 

Of faith, and hope, and love. 
Though the snarling waters scowl beneath, 

And thunder rolls above. 
After the ram, the night of stars j 

After the night, the dawn j 
And that day goes down to a splendid death, 

Which lights another's morn! 



The Penny Piper 
of Saranac 

He called himself the Penny Piper, 
and apologized to his friends be- 
cause sometimes his whistle ex- 
ploded with strange noises and had 
to be patched with sticking-plaster. 
Yet when he played on his pipe the 
whole world listened, fascinated 
even by the strange noises ; and the 
army of earth's children that fol- 
lowed him — that is following him 
still — was greater than the Pied 
Piper of Hamelin ever enthralled. 

n 3 ] 



The Penny Piper 

He was an odd fellow to look at, 
as, of course, a magic piper should 
be. Eagle-beaked and eagle-eyed, 
his face was ever touched with a 
Pan-like humor, **a deal of Ariel, 
just a streak of Puck." Whimsical, 
purposeful, quick-tempered, gen- 
erous, selfish, lovable, fierce, for- 
giving — a human paradox. 

This was the Penny Piper of 
Saranac, and he was something of 
a mystery to all who knew him in 
the little Adirondack village. They 
did not know that he was a great 
man, for he never happened to 
mention the fact himself, and even 
the beginnings of the world were 



of Saranac 

away on the other side of forty 
miles of tangled forest. 

He did not fish. He did not 
hunt. He lacked the principal vir- 
tue of man in the wilderness — 
physical strength ; and for a living 
he seemed only to tootle upon a 
penny whistle and cut a fantastic 
figure upon skates on the lake be- 
hind the cottage where he lived. 

The cottage w^as ** a hat-box on 
a hill," as the Penny Piper himself 
said. All the winds of heaven blew 
around it. Below, the Saranac 
River snarled and guggled under 
its piled-up jam of ice. Beyond, 
Mount Pisgah glow^ered under 

[ 5 -] 



The Penny Piper 

icicled brows at Mount Baker be- 
hind the cottage. The Penny Piper 
said the only redeeming feature of 
the place was that it reminded him 
of some place else. 

Most of all was he a mystery 
to his landlady and her lord. The 
Penny Piper burned holes in Mrs. 
Baker's sitting-room mantelpiece 
with the live ends of his cigarettes. 
In the evenings he would play An- 
cient Mariner to Andrew Baker's 
Wedding Guest. The Piper would 
talk to the woodsman, uttering 
strange matters, until Andrew's 
eyes grew heavy and his head nod- 
ded, and he was lulled to sleep in 

[61 



of Saranac 

his chair by the magic spell of a 
genius. 

In the daytime, when the bliz- 
zard piled snowdrifts window-high, 
the Penny Piper made " big medi- 
cine " in his little room under the 
southern gable of the ^'hat-box.'' 
In this room there was an old desk 
adorned with pens, ink, and pa- 
per ; also a piano — and the penny 
whistle. 

" He tootles the whistle better 'n 
he plays the piano!" said Mrs. 
Baker to her spouse. 

*' And a sight oftener," said the 
woodsman. 

Of course he did! Who ever 

C 7] 



The Penny Piper 

heard of Ariel, or Puck, or Pan 
playing a piano ? True, there were 
times when the Penny Piper's 
hands grew numb with cold. Then 
he would get up from the table and 
make a fierce attack upon Bee- 
thoven with a heavy bunch of rusty 
keys. But he would usually wind 
up with a Jacobite air upon the 
penny whistle, after which he 
would resume with the pen. You 
remember his words : " To earn a 
little and to spend a little less ; to 
make, upon the whole, a family 
happier for his presence." 

Yet in this little cottage in the 
Adirondack wilderness, during the 

C 8 : 




THE STEVENSON COTTAGE AT SARANAC LAKE 



s 


■MP 



THE ROOM WHERE STEVENSON WROTE "A CHRISTMAS 
SERMON," "THE LANTERN-BEARERS," ETC. 



of Saranac 

bitter winter of 1 8 8 7-8 8 , the Penny 
Piper played some of his sweet- 
est melodies; his notes reached 
their purest and clearest heights ; 
and to-day what he wrote under 
that little southern gable, where 
the drift-snow piled up against the 
window, is bound in morocco and 
gold, is scrolled on vellum and 
hung as mottoes in garret and man- 
sion alike, in the offices of com- 
merce and in the waiting-rooms of 
pain, in the temples of wisdom and 
in the heart of humanity, for it 
brings strength to the strong and 
cheer to the sick. 

These but conspired with his 



The Penny Piper 

genius and the keen air of the 
hills to such results as " Pulvis et 
Umbra," " The Lantern-Bearers," 
"Gentlemen," "Beggars," "A 
Christmas Sermon," and last (per- 
haps least) "The Master of Bal- 
lantrae," which ends in story where 
it was begun in fact — in the fro- 
zen forest under the shadow of 
Mount Baker. 

When Robert Louis Stevenson 
lived there, Saranac Lake village 
was but a backwoods hamlet. The 
first locomotive had not yet star- 
tled the buck and the bear. 

The community which is now 



of Saranac 

the metropolis of the Adirondacks 
had in 1887 less than a handful of 
the thousands who have since fol- 
lowed the trail first blazed in that 
region by Dr. Edward L. Tru- 
deau, himself a victim of tuber- 
culosis. Everybody knows why 
Stevenson went to Saranac, and 
everybody knows that Dr. Tru- 
deau was his physician. 

It has been said, upon hearsay, 
that Dr. Trudeau, the famous 
head of the Adirondack Cottage 
Sanitarium,' and Robert Louis 
Stevenson did not get along to- 

^ Since Dr. Trudeau's death, " Trudeau 
Sanatorium." 



The Penny Piper 

gether very well. This is with- 
out foundation in fact. Stevenson 
himself wrote on a leaf of the 
"Jekyll and Hyde '' of ''Dr. Tru- 
deau's Complete Set, from the 
Author '': — 

' ' Trudeau was all the winter at my 
side, 
I never spied the nose of Mr. Hyde. ' ' 

Dr. Trudeau was probably one 
of the few in the village at that 
time who appreciated what man- 
ner of man had come to it ; and 
it is clear that Stevenson was 
quick to appreciate the intellectual 
qualities of the man who came to 
see him, first with a cold stetho- 

: 12 ] 



of Saranac 

scope, then with the warm hand 
of friendship. 

This friendship was spontane- 
ous. The nature of it may be 
judged from the fact that, when 
they did not agree, they did not 
agree to disagree, — after the man- 
ner of the lukewarm, — but quar- 
reled ! 

But the quarrels ! They were of 
the kind indulged in by brothers 
who part with black murder in 
their hearts and burst out laugh- 
ing next time they meet. They 
were quarrels of the kind in which 
one holds it a private, personal 
privilege to criticize the other, but 



The Penny Piper 

woe unto the third person who 
ventures to criticize either to the 
other ! 

On the really great things of 
life they were in perfect accord ; 
so they chose the most trivial mat- 
ters upon which to differ. 

The best illustration of this is, 
perhaps, the "check story," which 
Dr. Trudeau used to relate, and 
always with immense delight. 
There was no stenographer pres- 
ent, and Dr. Trudeau himself did 
not undertake to repeat the exact 
dialogue, but fit)m the facts and 
from a knowledge of the two per- 
sonalities this is how it was : — 



of Saranac 

Stevenson : My dear Trudeau ! 
I have the greatest respect for 
your intelHgence. For that reason 
it distresses me — distresses me ! 
— to hear you utter such fallacy. 
How can the American baggage 
system be superior to the British 
luggage system? 

Tiiideau : But, my dear Steven- 
son, we are dealing with facts! 
I know that, as a Britisher, you 
are naturally prejudiced — 

Stevenson (interrupting) : I beg 
your pardon, Dr. Trudeau. I would 
never allow racial prejudice to 
warp my judgment in the matter 
of a ten-and-sixpenny trunk. The 
British system is the best. You 
hire a porter. You look after your 

i 15 ] 



The Penny Piper 

own luggage. At your destination 
you claim it in person. It is not 
at all necessary to put your head 
out of the compartment at every 
stop and cry, like the Irishman : 
^' Gyard ! Is me tronk all right ? " 
Trudeau [who has been waiting 
with fortitude for a chance to con- 
tinue ) : Of course not. Now, then, 
— the American system ! You are 
bound, say, from New York to 
San Francisco. You buy your 
railway ticket, indicate your bag- 
gage to a baggage-master with a 
pencil stuck in his ear and a bunch 
of tags in his hands. He gives 
you a brass check. In a week 
you are in San Francisco. You 
have n't seen or heard of your 

[ is;] 



of Saranac 

blessed trunk since you left New 
York; yet there it is, safe and 
sound. And all that is required 
of you in San Francisco is that 
brass check. JVbw what have you 
to say ? 

Stevenson [ivho is cornered, hut 
hates to ad?nit it): We — ell . . . 
( He puffs great clouds of cigarette 
smoke and walks up and down, 
greatly agitated. Then, with a 
hurst oj exasperation) That is just 
you Americans all over ! Checks ! 
Checks ! Checks ! You eat on the 
check system. You hang your 
hat on the check system. Why, 
an American can't speak of dying 
without saying that he " hands in 
his checks" ! 

L ^7 ] 



The Penny Piper 

Trudeau {^twenty years later) : 
He had me that time. 

After such animated discussion 
one may picture Dr. Trudeau as 
he tramps down the road to his 
own house, a muffled figure in 
coonskin cap and coat, his thick 
moccasins crunching on the frozen 
snow under the clear, snapping 
stars of the Adirondack midwinter, 
and vowing never to darken the 
Penny Piper's door again ! 

But next day Trudeau would 
remember that Stevenson was a 
sick man, that he was his physician, 
and that it was his duty to go and 
see his patient even if he could 

C 18 3 



of Saranac 

never meet him again as a friend. 
If he did n't go, no doubt the 
Penny Piper would be sitting in 
that eight-by-ten room with the 
piano and the old desk and the 
penny whistle, and with all the air 
excluded through the keyhole by 
cigarette smoke and sideward dis- 
placement. 

Probably about the same time 
Stevenson would be blowing from 
his whistle that mournful Jacobite 
air to which he fitted ^*Sing me 
a song of a lad that is gone,'' 
and wondering whether he ought 
not to put on his buffalo coat 
and Indian moccasins and carry 

I 19 ] 



The Penny Piper 

the hatchet to the Doctor for 
burial. 

If it happened that he did not 
go, the Doctor would come sooner 
or later — - professionally, of course ! 
Robert Louis would receive him 
like a prince. Each would admit 
that the other was possibly right 
about the baggage system, except, 
perhaps, that — 

And as like as not they would 
start in just where they had left off; 
or, if that subject were exhausted, 
take up another for argument, such 
as whether, according to Trudeau's 
theory, it were not wiser to con- 
serve the health by observing mod- 

[ 20 ] 



of Saranac 

eration (say in the use of ciga- 
rettes), or, according to Steven- 
son's theory, regard ill health as 
something altogether outside a 
man and death merely a possi- 
bility of any minute and from any 
of a number of unexpected causes. 

In this connection it is interest- 
ing to hear what Dr. Trudeau has 
to say about Stevenson's death in 
Samoa in i 894. It has been said 
that he died of tuberculosis. It has 
been said that he died of apoplexy . 

" He did not die of tuberculosis," 
says Dr. Trudeau, " as I made 
a point of finding out. I have no 
documentary evidence that he died 

c: 21 ] 



The Penny Piper 

of anything else, but all the dis- 
patches from Samoa agreed that 
it was cerebral apoplexy. Yet it 
is a mistake to say that he never 
had tuberculosis. Although, while I 
took care of him, he had none of 
the active symptoms, such as hem- 
' orrhage, or fever, or tubercle ba- 
cilli, present, yet he undoubtedly 
had had tuberculosis. It may have 
become active again after he left 
Saranac, so there is no telling just 
how much that disease may have 
contributed to his mortal illness at 
Samoa." 

Regarding a theory brought 
forward some years ago in a 

C 22 3 



of Sara?tac 

prominent medical publication, and 
copied extensively in the news- 
papers, that the morbid phase of 
Stevenson's genius was cause*d by 
tubercular toxin in his blood, Dr. 
Trudeau laughed heartily. If any- 
thing could be named to account 
for the production of such strange 
or morbid tales as "Jekyll and 
Hyde," " Olalla," and *^The Merry 
Men," it would be the Celtic cor- 
puscles in his blood! 

The horrible fascination of the 
supernatural for the Scot is well 
known. The fearful fascination of 
the sea, as exploited in "The 
Merry Men,'' is also a character- 

I 23 1 



li I 



The Penny Piper 

istic of the high northern races, 
especially of the Scottish High- 
landers, who in ancient days drew 
an infusion of blood from the Vik- 
ings. There was evidence of the 
Viking strain in Stevenson and his 
seagoing forefathers. Race toxin 
/ is the only influence his blood may 
/ have brought to his writings. 

W^hile on the subject, it is hardly 
necessary to state that Stevenson 
was much interested in the admi- 
rable work Dr. Trudeau was do- 
ing in tuberculosis research. Unfor- 
tunately, while on paper the Penny 
Piper could deal so beautifully with 
the philosophy of illness and death, 

C 24 ] 



of Saranac 

his own ph3^sical weakness, and 
that personal sensitiveness which 
he so ably embodied in young Weir 
of Hermiston, compelled in him 
a horror of the material facts. He 
did not fish or hunt, because he 
could not bear the sight of suffer- 
ing and death, even in animals 
that are regarded as fair game. 

Imagine, then, what happened 
when, in a heroic moment, Steven- 
son ventured into Dr. Trudeau's 
laboratory, where the little guinea- 
pigs were being immortalized for 
the ultimate benefit of humanity 
and humaneness. Had Stevenson 
lived to hear the anti-vivisection 

C 25 J 



The Penny Piper 

uproar of recent years, the zo- 
ophiles might have offered him 
their permanent chairmanship. But 
if we know anything of the Penny 
Piper's spirit, we fancy he would 
have refused it. The fact that he 
himself suffered imaginative ago- 
nies of sympathy for the guinea- 
pigs did not in the least becloud his 
vision of the end toward which sac- 
rifice of some sort, not necessarily 
of blood, is ever the only means. 

Here is the guinea-pig story, 
which illustrates the theory : — 

One day the Penny Piper's 
genius was deeply stirred. The 
whistle had been silent all mom- 



of Saranac 

ing, for it was a great thought he 
had seized upon. It was that of 
the lantern-bearers, the playful 
Scottish boys who carried bull's- 
eyes under their jackets and occa- 
sionally flashed them upon aston- 
ished passers-by. You could not 
see the lanterns, but it was a se- 
cret joy to each lad to know that 
he had his under cover, even if 
his whole being did reek of oil. 

Ah! it was a grand thought, 
this, of the light under the bushel 
that smelled of oil, and in his lit- 
tle room the Penny Piper's pen 
moved slowly and steadily over 
the paper : — 

i: 27 -\ 



The Penny Piper 

. . . Not a ray escaping, whether 
to conduct your footsteps or to 
make your glory pubhc ; a mere 
pillar of darkness in the dark, and 
all the while deep down in the 
privacy of your fool's heart, to 
know you had a bull's-eye at your 
belt, and to exult and sing over 
the knowledge. 

When it was finished, the Penny 
Piper remembered that Dr. Tru- 
deau had promised to show him 
the mysteries of his laboratory. 
Still aglow with the high thoughts 
of "The Lantern-Bearers," Stev- 
enson put on his buffalo coat and 
hurried away through the snow. 

C 28 -] 



of Saranac 

The sight of the grave scien- 
tist bending over his work in that 
strange place of crucibles and tubes 
stirred the dreamer's enthusiasm 
afresh. Here was the thought 
materialized — the man with the 
bull's-eye, who was thinking less 
of fame than of the moment's task 
allotted. 

The Penny Piper told his friend 
of the day's work, talking as only 
he talked, every muscle and facial 
expression in action, his eyes aglow, 
and his long arms gesturing in il- 
lustration. But suddenly he re- 
membered why he had come to 
the laboratory. 



The Penny Piper 

" Now, Trudeau/' said he, <'let 
me see your light ! '' 

Dr. Trudeau picked up a tube 
containing a sickly-looking liq- 
uid. 

"The scum you see in this 
tube,' ' said he, "is consumption. It 
is the cause of more human suf- 
fering than anything else in the 
world. We can produce tubercu- 
losis in the guinea-pig with it, and 
if we could cure tuberculosis in the 
guinea-pig, this great burden of 
human suffering might be lifted 
from the world." 

Then he told of his own ex- 
periments upon guinea-pigs with 

C so] 



of Saranac 

cultures of tubercle bacilli, and 
produced charts showing results 
that made similar symptoms in 
the human case comprehensible, 
and more combatable. He pointed 
to a row of large stoppered bot- 
tles containing tuberculous organs 
of guinea-pigs, ghastly evidences 
of the destroyer's poison. With 
a bottle in his hand, Trudeau 
turned to his very silent compan- 
ion and — found that Robert Louis 
Stevenson had vanished ! 

Astonished and puzzled, the 
medical scientist laid down his 
charts and went in search of the 
Penny Piper. He found him in the 



The Pen?ry Piper 

open air, leaning against a veranda 
post and looking very pale. 

Trade au [rushing to his side): 
Stevenson, are you ill? 

Stevenson {^swallowing hard) : 
N — no. 

Trudeau : You don't look well. 
How do you feel ? 

Stevenson ( with a brave but sickly 
smile) : Trudeau, I know — I know 
your lamp is very bright, but — 
to me it smells of oil like the 
devil ! 

The Penny Piper was fair above 
all things, however, and he gen- 
erously admitted that the fact of 
an oil smell upsetting a particular 

C 32 ] 



of Saranac 

stomach did not dim the luster 
of a particular light. 

Seven years after Stevenson's 
death, Thomas Bailey Aldrich 
came to Saranac Lake on account 
of the illness of his son, Charles. 
He lived on the side of Mount Pis- 
gah that overlooked the " hat-box '' 
where the Penny Piper lived thir- 
teen years before. In a letter to 
William Dean Howells at this 
time (December, 1901 ), Aldrich 
wrote : " We are very literary up 
here. Why did Hutton go to 
Jerusalem for 'Literary Land- 
marks ' when he might have 

[ 33 ^ 



The Penny Piper 

found plenty of them in the Ad- 
irondacks ? Among others who 
have left footprints on the sands 
of time are Stillman, Emerson, 
and Stevenson." 

Referring to Mr. Howells's ad- 
mission that up to that time he 
had never read a novel of Steven- 
son's, Mr. Aldrich wrote in the 
same letter : " You have missed 
an entertaining writer, though not 
a great one." 

In passing, it may be mentioned 
that that dear fiction about Rich- 
ard Mansfield visiting the Baker 
cottage and acting "Jekyll and 
Hyde " for the author's benefit is 

c 34:1 



of Saranac 

without foundation. Our talkative 
Penny Piper would surely have 
mentioned such an event in his 
letters to Henry James, or J. A. 
Symonds, or Sidney Colvin. Cer- 
tainly he could hardly have helped 
doing so, had the incident occurred, 
to his collaborator in dramas, 
W.E.Henley. But he did not. Dr. 
Trudeau has no knowledge of such 
a visit. Andrew Baker, Steven- 
son's landlord, thinks that the per- 
sistent tale grew out of the visit of 
a dramatic agent of Boston,' who 
came to Saranac Lake in the hope 

^ I hav^e ascertained since that the Thes- 
pian visitor was Daniel Bandmann. (S. C.) 

C 35 3 



The Penny Piper 

of procuring certain dramatic rights 
from Stevenson. 

As to Stevenson's being <<not 
very popular," to revert to a sug- 
gestion in one of Mr. Aldrich's 
letters, he had little in common 
coin with the "natives" of that 
time, and the social, literary, and 
intellectual circle was limited. He 
was highly popular among those in 
the little colony who could appre- 
ciate him ; and interesting, though 
few, are the true stories touching 
his social intercourse at this time. 

One dinner of unusual cere- 
mony may have suggested to 
Stevenson the sentence, " I have 



of Saranac 

learned to move among pompous 
menials without much terror, never 
without much respect." 

At this particular dinner Steven- 
son was not in evening dress. The 
Penny Piper was notoriously un- 
conventional in attire. Besides, as 
Aldrich mentioned later, "the Sar- 
anackers don't dress for dinner, 
they dress for breakfast," and did 
not Stevenson assure Will H. Low 
that he was " a rank Saranacker, 
a wild man of the woods"? 

Anyway, the dinner was a fine 
affair. The butler appeared at an 
appropriate moment and elevated 
a single eyebrow to convey that 

i: 37 ] 



The Penny Piper 

madam was served. As there were 
more gentlemen present than la- 
dies, Dr. Trudeau <* took in " Stev- 
enson. As the Doctor playfully 
offered his arm, the Penny Piper 
clutched it in a kind of panic. 

Trudeau : What 's the matter ? 

Stevenson : Honest, now — are 
n't you scared ? 

Trudeau : Well, not exactly 
scared; impressed, perhaps. 

Stevenson ( shaking his head) : 
Trudeau, I 'm scared to death ! 

It was after one less imposing 
dinner that Stevenson expressed 
his terror of a hero-worshiping 
admirer. She was of the type that 

I 38 ] 



of Saranac 

qualifies everything with super- 
latives. All through the evening 
she kept assuring the Penny Piper 
that "Jekyll and Hyde'' was the 
«* weirdest," " Treasure Island " 
the "loveliest," and" Will o' the 
Mill" the " sweetest " — ever ! 

When Stevenson escaped, he 
sought Dr. Trudeau's protection. 

"I don't mind the Great Un- 
washed," he whispered tragically. 
" It 's the Great Washed I dread ! " 

From the literary standpoint the 
most interesting story of the Penny 
Piper and his friends in Saranac has 
to do with the genesis of "The 

I 39 ] 



The Penny Piper 

Master of Ballantrae '' and the be- 
ginning of the real Stevenson wo- 
man in fiction. 

Up to this time the women in his 
books, excepting Jim Hawkins's 
mother in ** Treasure Island," had 
been somewhat of stage type. Jim 
Hawkins's mother was true, but 
Stevenson had his own deeply hon- 
est and just mother to draw from. 
There was an elusive girl in '' The 
Merry Men," but she was shad- 
owy ; and in " Prince Otto" Sera- 
phina and Madame von Rosen 
were encased in court artifice. He 
had not yet touched the deep 
springs of natural womanhood. 

[ 40 J 



of Saranac 

To appreciate the far-reaching 
effects of the incident that brought 
the Penny Piper's magic pen to the 
true delineation of women in his la- 
ter works, it is necessary to begin 
at Saranac with "The Master of 
Ballantrae " and to show how Gen- 
eral Custer's widow injected a fail- 
ure into it. But it was a failure on 
which success was to be built. 

Even as at Saranac the plot of 
"The White Feather" flashed 
upon Thomas Bailey Aldrich "out 
of a blue sky of idleness," so came 
the genesis of " Ballantrae " to the 
Penny Piper. In Stevenson's own 
words, this is how it was : — 

. 1:41 ] 



The Penny Piper 

I was walking one night on the 
verandah of a small house in which 
I lived, outside the hamlet of Sar- 
anac. It was winter ; the night was 
very dark ; the air extraordinarily 
clear and cold, and sweet with the 
purity of forests. From a good way 
below, the river was to be heard 
contending with ice and boulders ; 
a few lights appeared, scattered 
unevenly in the darkness, but so 
far away as not to lessen the sense 
of isolation. For the making of a 
story here were fine conditions. . . . 

" Come," said I to my engine, 
" let us make a tale, a story of 
many years and countries, of the 
sea and the land, savagery and 
civilization. . . ^ 

1 42 :i 



of Saranac 

Shortly after that December 
night he was again at a dinner- 
party. Most of the little colony 
were present, but for my purpose 
it is only needful to mention Mrs. 
Custer, Dr. Trudeau, and Robert 
Louis Stevenson. After the soup, 
Mrs. Guster opened fire upon the 
Penny Piper. 

Mrs. Custer: Now, why is it, 
Mr. Stevenson, that you never put 
a real woman in your stories ? 

Stevenson (with twinkling grav- 
ity ) : Madam, I have little knowl- 
edge of Greek. 

Mrs, Custer : But you have some 
knowledge of women, surely! 

C43 ] 



The Penny Piper 

Why, you have been a married 
man these seven years ! 

Stevenson: With the result, 
Mrs. Custer, that I have forgotten 
all the Greek I ever knew. 

Mrs. Custer: But the public ex- 
pects it of you, and the feminine 
portion demands it. Come ! When 
are we to be introduced to the 
Stevenson woman in fiction ? 

Stevenson (zvith sudden enthu- 
siasm) : Mrs. Custer ! I promise 
you there shall be a woman in 
my next book ! 

The Penny Piper regretted his 
rash gallantry before the close of 
the evening. Later, he confided his 
fears to Dr. Trudeau. 

[ 44 ] 



of Saranac 

Trudeau: Tve often wondered, 
Stevenson, but never thought to 
ask : Why do you never put a real 
woman in a story ? 

Stevenson : Good Heavens ! Tru- 
deau, when I have tried I find she 
talks like a grenadier ! 

Nevertheless, he kept his prom- 
ise to Mrs. Custer, and the result 
is that wooden effigy in ''The 
Master of Ballantrae," who is 
called, for - identification's sake, 
Alison Durie. 

But the ice was broken, and 
from this point the evolution of the 
real Stevenson woman in fiction 
is interesting to trace. Jim Pinker- 

C 45 ] 



The Penny Piper 

ton's wife in "The Wrecker" is 
true — almost painfully true. Ca- 
triona in " David Balfour " is better 
— much; but both are girls. It is 
not until we meet Uma in " The 
Beach of Falesa " and a full-grown 
heroine in "St. Ives" that we be- 
gin to find boldness and accuracy 
in his strokes. 

For this, as for many other rea- 
sons, what a pity that death stayed 
his hand in " Weir of Hermiston," 
for in the elder Kirstie he was 
etching a masterpiece of deep 
womanhood — "a severe case of 
middle age." But the work had 
progressed far enough to indicate 

C 46 -\ 



of Saranac 

beyond cavil that " Greek " might 
safely be added to his accomplish- 
ments. 

Stevenson's place in the mem- 
ory of Saranac Lake is unique. 
The people have forgotten the 
actual face of the man ; and the 
record of his life there — of the 
many little things not down on 
the page of conventional literary 
history — is becoming obliterated 
by time. Seldom does a visitor 
make pilgrimage to that little 
room under the southern gable 
where the Penny Piper tootled 
on his whistle and penned golden 

[47 ] 



The Penny Piper 

letters in the intervals. But the 
echo of the magic pipe is still in 
the air, although the Penny Piper 
has vanished. 

There is no place where his 
works are more popular for their 
own sake, aside from their auth- 
or's having lived there; for in 
ail the world there is no place 
that needs and benefits by his 
brave creed of living more than 
Saranac Lake. It is a place of pa- 
tient suffering, of ships that some- 
times pass in the night. It is, like 
Stevenson personally, something 
of a tragedy, but, as in the case 
of the Penny Piper, none would 

[ 48 •} 




THE STEVENSON COTTAGE 
Andkew Baker discussing R. L. S. with a Literary Pilgrim 




THE VERANDA WHERE STEVENSON 
WALKED AND DREAMED 



of Saranac 



ever know it except from acute 
contact and observation. 

There are over one thousand 
persons in that Adirondack vil- 
lage brought there by the same 
chance that led Robert Louis Ste- 
venson to the hills; and if they 
would keep their courage strong 
and their faith in the world's good- 
ness intact, their viewpoint must 
of necessity be that which Steven- 
son engraved upon the rocks of 
Mount Baker. It was indeed " big 
medicine'' for the after-comers 
that the Penny Piper made in the 
little house up the road. 

No one asserts that the brief 

L 49 ] 



The Penny Piper 

passage of Stevenson through one 
Saranac winter is wholly respon- 
sible for the atmosphere of peace 
and good- will which is a peculiar 
and seemingly unchangeable char- 
acteristic of that mountain village. 
But what he wrote while there has 
a tremendous application there^ 
and Dr. Trudeau pressed the ap- 
plication with that of his own 
broad humanity. The result is 
startling to the newcomer — a 
place with an atmosphere dis- 
tinctively its own. It would take 
a genius to define this atmosphere, 
but the genius of Thomas Bailey 
Aldrich did it when, the shadow 

C50 ] 



of Saranac 

of his son's doom hanging heavily 
upon him, he could write to Wil- 
liam Dean Howells : "There's a 
charm about the place. There's 
something in the air to heal the 
heart of sorrow." 

The works of the Penny Piper 
are ever in demand at the village 
library, but there is one book in 
that institution which none may 
borrow or even touch. It is <^ Mor- 
ley Ernstein," by G. P. R. James. 

A few months ago the libra- 
rian was looking over Stevenson's 
"Letters," when he came upon 
one to Mr. E. L. Burlingame. In it 
the Penny Piper feverishly asked 

C 51 3 



The Penny Piper 

for certain works of "dear old 
G. P. R." 

" This return to an ancient fa- 
vorite," wrote the Piper, "hangs 
upon an accident. The Franklin 
County Library contains two works 
of his, ' The Cavalier ' and ' Mor- 
ley Ernstein.' I read the first with 
indescribable amusement — it was 
worse than I feared, and yet some- 
how engaging ; the second ( to my 
surprise) was better than I dared 
to hope ; a good, honest, dull, in- 
teresting tale." 

The librarian laid down the 
volume of letters, and walked to 
the shelf where the remaining 

c 52 :i 



of Saranac 

tatters of G. P. R. should be. 
"The Cavalier" was gone — long 
since defunct ; but there was the 
"Morley Ernstein," yellowed and 
falling to pieces with age, for none 
had thought it fit to read since 
the days of the Penny Piper. 
There followed a sudden demand 
for " Morley Ernstein," by G. P. 
R. James, but the librarian was 
firm. Morley is now an honored 
pensioner, withdrawn from com- 
mon traflSc. 

The creed of the Penny Piper 
is almost a rule of mental conduct 
laid down for patients, not only 

i: 53 :i 



The Penny Piper 

by specialists of Saranac Lake, but 
by many of the medical fraternity 
elsewhere. There is a case on 
record of a young man who ar- 
rived in the village with the usual 
excuse for arriving. He was ex- 
amined by a physician, who pres- 
ently asked the new patient wheth- 
er his New York physician had 
prescribed anything. 

" Yes," said the patient, and he 
produced this prescription : — 

Fresh air, 
" eggs. 
Read Robert Louis Stevenson. 
Potter, M.D. 

[ 54 ] 



of Saranac 

"Continue to take!" said the 
physician. 

The influence of Dr. Trudeau 
upon the methods of anti-tuber- 
culosis fighters is not without a 
suggestion of the influence of 
Stevenson upon Trudeau. When, 
as President of the Eighth Con- 
gress of American Physicians and 
Surgeons, Dr. Trudeau addressed 
his fellows at Washington, he thus 
paid tribute to the Penny Piper 
of Saranac, who had seen the 
light in his laboratory away back 
in the dark days : — 

Let us not, therefore, quench 



The Penny Piper 

the faith nor turn from the vision 
which, whether we own it or not, 
we carry, as Stevenson's lantern- 
bearers their lanterns, hidden from 
the outer world, and, thus inspired, 
many will reach the goal; and if 
for most of us our achievements 
inevitably fall short of our ideals, 
if when age and infirmity over- 
take us " we come not within 
sight of the castle of our dream,'' 
nevertheless all will be well with 
us, for, as Stevenson tells us 
rightly, <* to travel hopefully is 
better than to arrive, and the true 
success is in labor." 



THE END 



Appendix 



Appendix 

Address by Lloyd Oshounie {read by 
proxy) at the Unveiling of the Me- 
moiial to Robert Louis Stevenson at 
the Baker Cottage^ Saranac Lake^ 
j\exu York, October 20, 1915. 

How little could Stevenson have an- 
ticipated, as he walked up and down 
the veranda in the rare intervals of 
a very bleak sunshine, or (so much 
more often the case), as he huddled 
close to the fire with the logs hissing 
and the frosted windows steaming, 
that twenty-nine years later this spot 
would be hallowed to many through 
no other fact than his once having 
lived here. He would have been pro- 
foundly touched, and no doubt as 
profoundly dismayed. He had ever 

C 59 ] 



Appendix 



too much humor to take himself seri- 
ously. I can almost hear him cry out: 
"Good Heavens, I hope nobody is 
going to take me as the model of any- 
thing." Yet deep down, of course, he 
would have felt a very human thrill 
of pleasure. It is no small thing in 
this forgetful world for any one to be 
remembered years after his death ; to 
have one's memory kept green and 
one's personal mementoes treasured ; 
to evoke from the hearts of the living, 
and those strangers, affection and 
homage. 

Once in this house Stevenson laid 
down the copy of ' ' Don Quixote ' ' 
he was reading, and said, with a curi- 
ous poignancy that lingers still in my 
ears: " That's what I am — just an- 
other Don Quixote. ' ' I think this was 
the most illuminating thing he ever said 
about himself. It was the realization 

C 60 ] 




GUTZON BORGLUM AND HIS TRIBUTE TO R. L. S. 




MR. AND MRS. ANDREW BAKER 



Appendix 

that his high-flown ideals, his super- 
sensitive honor, his vehement resent- 
ment of wrong and injustice were per- 
haps hopelessly at discord with the 
world he lived in — the momentary 
faltering of a great altruist. It is sur- 
prising that in his essay on ' ' Books 
that have Influenced Me " I believe he 
made no mention of ' ' Don Quixote, ' ' 
yet in conversation I can recall his 
referring to it often — "that it was 
the saddest book he had ever read ' ' ; 
"that Don Quixote was the great- 
est gentleman in fiction"; " that the 
Duke and Duchess were a pair of 
detestable cads to make sport of the 
old fellow^ and he their guest. ' ' More- 
over, he had even stumbled through 
the original in his halting, laborious 
Spanish. 

Stevenson had a wonderful reading 
voice; I ha^'e ne\'er heard any one 

c 61 : 



Appendix 

who could equal him ; in listening to 
him one was stirred by an indescrib- 
able sense of romance, of emotion, — 
of the heartstrings being played upon. 
I imagine, from what I have heard, 
that Charles Dickens possessed the 
same magic quality of evolving so com- 
plete an illusion that the fictive char- 
acters seemed alive — that one seemed 
to see as well as hear them — that the 
scenes merged imperceptibly from de- 
scription into poetic fact. In the long 
winter evenings in Saranac, Steven- 
son read aloud "Othello," "The 
Tempest," " Julius Caesar," and 
' ' Macbeth ' ' ; read them with mant- 
ling face and increasing enthusiasm 
till the old room seemed to disappear 
in the glittering pageantry and match- 
less, swelling periods of Shakespeare. 
It is one of the most regrettable 
things about Stevenson that his long 

C 62 3 



Appendix 



hair and strange attire are always as- 
sumed to be an affectation. On the 
contrary, he was a man absolutely de- 
void of pose, and hated it and derided 
it in others. But during his prolonged 
illnesses, when often for weeks at a 
time he would be condemned to lie in 
the same position lest a single move- 
ment might bring on a fresh hemor- 
rhage of the lungs, his hair would 
grow excessively long ; as cutting it 
afterwards often caused him to catch 
cold (and a cold to him meant a repe- 
tition of the frightful illness) , it Avas 
left much as it was, save for a slight 
trimming. The shawls, cloaks, etc., 
so familiar and so fantastic, in his 
photographs, were only too often seized 
up hastily and thrown over his night- 
%o\\w to keep him from the fatigue 
of dressing. The truth is, that until 
he went to Samoa, where he enjoyed 

C 63 ] 



Appendix 

a sufficiency of health that allowed 
him to dress and wear his hair in the 
ordinary manner, every day might 
have been his last. So far, indeed, 
from his long hair and singular cloth- 
ing being a mark of affectation, they 
are a pathetic reminder of his sick- 
room, and show how rarely he emerged 
from it into the light of day. 

It is not easy for those who loved 
him to forgive such tales as his walk- 
ing down Piccadilly — "very jauntily," 
as the book observes — in a lady's fur 
coat, pilfered from a party, and with 
a bunch of daffodils at his neck ; and 
similar falsehoods, too often malicious 
in their origin. I would beg all ad- 
mirers of Robert Louis Stevenson not 
to credit such idiocies, which some 
people, who knew him well, have not 
been ashamed to put into circulation. 
It is hard to conceive of a more sue- 

C 64 ^ 



Appendix 

cessful form of disparagement, nor one 
better calculated to rouse dislike and 
scorn. 

I wish I could write more, and that 
better, of this high-minded, high- 
hearted, generous, inspiring man, 
^\hose hfe was a tragedy of ill health 
redeemed by an heroic courage. That 
he faltered at times — that he had his 
moments of despair — only serves to 
make his intrepid spirit shine the 
brighter, and aids us to emulate him 
in our lesser trials. I think those who 
honor his memory honor themselves, 
for it is the generous who appreciate 
generosity, and the courageous, cour- 
age, and the charitable, charity and 
kindness, and it is in fellow-feeling 
that this little party assembles here 
to-day to pay a beautiful tribute to 
the dead. 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



